1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system, apparatus, and method of preventing a collision of a remote-controlled mobile robot with an obstacle and, more particularly, to a system, apparatus, and method of preventing such a collision of a remote-controlled mobile robot by performing color-mapping on the obstacle that may collide with the mobile robot on the screen of a control appliance which controls the mobile robot from a remote place, and generating an alarm signal before the mobile robot collides against the obstacle, so as to enable a user controlling the mobile robot at the remote to easily recognize the obstacle.
2. Description of Related Art
Generally, a mobile robot detects a current position of the mobile robot itself and a position of an obstacle by use of a camera, and performs travel and operation in accordance with the position information.
Recently, as the use field of a mobile robot has been widely and diversely extended from military and industrial uses to home use, attention is now being directed to ways in which a mobile robot finds the position of an obstacle and ways in which a user controlling the mobile robot recognizes the obstacle. Examples of such a conventional method and system are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,905,151 and 6,845,297.
In the conventional art, the mobile robot measures a distance between the robot and the obstacle based on the position and brightness of light which is collimated on a charge coupled device (CCD) by illuminating the light toward the front of the mobile robot, or a remote user views a head-up display of the robot and an overhead map of a user interface through a monitor to control the mobile robot from a remote place.
Image distortion of a peripheral object seen through a camera and an amount of information to be seen once through the camera may differ by a field of view (FOV) of the CCD. If the FOV of the CCD is small, it is difficult to distinguish the shape of the obstacle, and also it is difficult to inform the remote user of the information on the obstacle.
Also, it is required for an expensive distance measuring sensor is required to draw out the overhead map which can be recognized by the remote user. If the screen of the user's appliance to control the mobile robot is small, it is difficult to display the overhead map, and also it is difficult for the user to recognize the obstacle through the overhead map displayed thereon.